Maria Illingworth, of Bournemouth, Dorset, boarded a bus to travel to her doctor's surgery when the driver told her the scanning machine had rejected her valid pass.

The stunned grandmother was then told that she could not board the bus because its computer records declared her as deceased.

He confiscated the card in case the 70-year-old was using it fraudulently and she was left to scramble for change to pay the fare.

She said: "It was so embarrassing. The bus was full and everyone was looking at me and I just couldn't understand what the problem could be.

"It was lucky I had my bag with me and enough money to get on the bus."

"I could see she had a little smile on her face. I asked her what was wrong and she said 'Well, according to the computer you are deceased.'

"I nearly passed out. I said 'I know I'm not very well but I'm not dead yet'."

Mrs Illingworth was told a new bus pass would be sent to her but she had to pay to take the bus back home from the town hall.

The embarrassing incident happened on August 19.

The grandmother-of-four said: "What concerns me is no-one seems to know how this happened.

"What if it happened to somebody much older, who might not be able to sort it out? It was not a nice experience at all, I found it very worrying and embarrassing and I wouldn't want it to happen to anybody else."